A coalition working for gender equality, women's rights, and climate justice
Context
Climate breakdown affects different demographics in varying ways. It has been shown that women are impacted more by climate impacts than men through, for example, displacement that prevents access to stable sources of food and healthcare.
Though increasing numbers of people recognise that effective climate policy needs to integrate a gender perspective, knowledge on how such gender-responsive policy can be implemented is still lacking. Knowing how to position more women in policy-making roles, and to urge women and men to think about the needs of women when designing climate-responsive policy, is paramount. These are the goals of the global coalition GenderCC: Women For Climate Justice which formed in 2007.
Practice
GenderCC integrates gender justice into climate change policy at local, national, and international levels. The coalition does this through research, action-oriented learning, knowledge exchange, advocacy and lobbying, training, and facilitating. Its primary target is policy-making because policy is where women’s rights, gender justice, and climate justice can be secured in a simultaneous and integrated manner. As GenderCC organisers write:
“The challenges of climate change and gender injustice resemble each other, in that they require the existing (and deeply flawed) systems of power, politics and economics to be addressed and overcome. This means not just gender mainstreaming but the transformation of gender relations and societal structures. It means more than just technical amendments to reduce emissions, and instead requires real mitigation by raising awareness and making extensive changes to unsustainable lifestyles and the current ideology and practice of unlimited economic growth. Instead of perpetuating the current division of resources and labour, it also means finding alternatives based on a responsible, cooperative approach to create sustainable and equitable societies.”
The coalition has developed a comprehensive package of information on a website for climate experts and decision-makers, introducing vocabularies and methods for mainstreaming gender into climate policy. The website explains gender and equity concepts, and gives an overview of options and ideas which users can adapt to their contexts, for example, transferring gender equity concepts into spatial practice in terms of the accessibility design of buildings. Access to adequate data is integral to developing resources such as this website. GenderCC’s requirement that any data used for policy-making be gender disaggregated is an important step in recognising and challenging gender inequity and exploitation within the context of climate policy and beyond. Its focus on data resonates with the work of feminist designers, theorists, and policymakers including Caroline Criado Perez, Leslie Kern, and the coalition Women 4 Climate. In highlighting gender disparities in the impact of climate change, GenderCC’s work has important implications for designers, understanding climate breakdown also as a condition of social inequality.